Covering As Much Material As Possible. - Pacing

 

We all know that every math book comes with a suggested pacing guide designed to get through just about every topic in the time available. The problem is that most students are not ready to move at that pace. If you have students who struggle, or have certain limitations, you just cannot teach at the pace suggested. I once had a principal who could not understand why my class ( filled with special ed students, students who were not up to grade level, etc) could not keep pace with the other class filled with gifted students. The other teacher had to explain why I couldn’t match her pace. No matter what, we want to teach students as much as possible, so today we are looking at ways to do that.

One of the first things to do is administer a protest to students. Most books have a pretest associated with the chapter. The results of the pretest give you an idea of which parts you can teach, which you can touch on, and which ones you can skip. The results also give you an idea of which students need scaffolding, or need to be challenged. 

As you teach the material, you might notice that some students did not fully get the material, look at the material in the rest of the book to see if there exists the opportunity to reinforce their learning by reteaching the topic in the future. If the opportunity does exist, then you can move on, revisiting the topic as needed.

Periodically sit down and see how far your pacing has taken you eithr]er individually or as a department. If you have not covered as much as you hoped, sit down and determine if there are concepts or topics that can be cut out. Sometimes, it is possible to combine material rather than teaching them individually. This should be done a couple times throughout the school year.

Another thing to look at is the structure of the lesson itself. Are you spending a third of the period going over questions, is the lecture taking up most of the class, or do they have enough time to work on the assignment. In this vein there are a few things one can do. It is important to know how much to]ime you actually have to do the lesson. Pacing with in the lesson is just as important as pacing through the year. When pacing is good, students are more likely to be engaged.

It is said that a well paced lesson leads to increased instructional time. In addition it is important to identify the specific learning target so you know what they need to know already and what they should have learned by the end of the lesson. In addition, plan the questions you want to ask ahead of time so the questions are specific to the learning goals. Also plan your teaching points so you stay on topic.

Finally, make sure the planned activities are ones that meet the time scheduled, help students learn the concepts. So pacing is both through the year and through the lessons. Let me know what you think, I’d love to hear. Have a great day.

Ways To Pace Instruction in the Classroom.

  Yesterday, I shared some nice ways to keep a good pace going in the classroom lesson but I found enough material that I wanted to share a bit more today.  I find the idea interesting because when I took teacher education classes, it was still when you sat kids in straight rows, lectured, and assigned work.  That was pretty much every class.  The teacher would often supply the notes on a transparency to project it on a screen so the kids could copy the notes down.  That is my default model.  I am trying to improve my teaching so I keep the kids on task and focused.

These suggestions form Florida actually integrate well with the material I've already talked about yesterday.
1. Incorporate movement which could be physical such as getting up and standing in a corner to answer a question or using different types of high lighters to show different types of information.

2. Incorporate academic games to review or preview material.  It builds the desire to learn due to the curiosity that students have.

3. Create mild competition using games such as Jeopardy.

4. Take inventory of student likes and dislikes to use to help plan lessons because if they like it, they are more likely to learn.

5.  Continue calling on students for the same question to keep interest up.  This might reveal that students did the problems differently.

In addition to pacing, it is important to actively engage students  so they learn.  This article offers five suggestions to improve actively engaging students.

1.  Connect the material with real life.  Keep in mind that some examples need to be culturally relevant to the students.  I have to use snow machines and ATV's out here because that is the vehicle used by families.  A problem with a car means nothing.

2. Use student interest and fascinations to boost engagement.

3.  Give students choices, allow them to set the pace, and try using menus in class and for homework.

4. Present the information in multiple formats.

5. Help students become aware of when they are off task.

Give both articles a good read for more detailed information.  I plan to download spread sheet programs to play with over the summer on my iPad to see which is best.  My iPads at school are old enough not to come with Numbers.